Her first time to the Great Library, she went with her grandmother. Soleil was old enough to navigate the directories at will. Celeste watched with a benign smile. The Princess created a tableful of stacks according to her whim – pretty, neat sounding, nice seeming, interesting, linked. She discovered at least five books which were listed, but not available.

There was one she could recall, of which she had still not seen the inside. She wondered about it. The title included the word, ‘movements.’ She’d been sure it was beyond her reading level at the time, but that was how she challenged herself. She picked up subjects that lay beyond her realm of understanding. It meant she might gain something, that she would grow up a little. With certainty, that was something she wanted to do.

The Vedani didn’t have books. They had cords, trunks, and netbranches bearing a never-ceasing flow of words, voices, concepts, and ideas that one could arrange with focus. Soleil missed the feel of a tome, but maybe that meant no book was ever closed, or missing.